Rain and Night
by Apprentice of Fire
Summary: Most people become rangers at choosing or something. Me, when I crash a Gathering. Being a ranger is difficult, but it's harder when you're hiding a secret that could destroy Araluen.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This is my 1st FanFiction story so please tell me anything I can do to be better!**

She ran. Trying to get away even though she knew she would be caught eventually. She risked a look behind her, and saw her pursuer. Terror surged through her veins propelling her to greater speeds. She ran until She came to a clearing filled with tents and weapon ranges. Surprise stopped her short. People in strange cloaks were ghosting around. In a matter of seconds they had formed a loose semi-circle. She guessed there were around 50 of them.

"Ah,you can't escape now."Drawled a cold sneer behind her. Refusing to turn around or even glance backwards, the girl replied in a dangerously quiet voice, filled with hate.

"Andra."

"I will subject you to the same torment you did me!"Andra spat angrily.

"You already tried that."The young girl replied, smirking. Spinning easily on one heel to face the black-clad figure.

"You could join us you know."Andra sneered calming down. "I'd make sure Idrak welcomes you."The girl smirked again.

"No he won't. I tried to kill him and undermine his colt."She replied confidently. Andra's eyes blazed with rage. She charged. The girl looked mildly amused as Andra lumbered toward her. As soon as Andra got close the girl leaped into the air, spun and landed on Andra's shoulders. Andra went to rub her back against a tree in an effort to dislodge the girl, but again the girl jumped off in another perfectly timed leap. When she landed her opponents blade was millimeters away from Andra's throat.

In one deft movement she whacked the flat of the blade against Andra's head, knocking her out.

"Yeah, you're definitely going to imprison me."The girl said sarcastically. Of course she received no answer.

Girl's POV:

"What!"I demanded the cloaked figures around me, as they stared. _How rude _I thought. _Didn't there mothers ever tell them it was rude to stare...Apparently not. _

Almost Cautiously one of them with sand colored hair stepped forward.

"Who are you?" He asked.

"That's none of your concern, were am I anyway?" I snapped.

"You're at our Gathering Ground." He said gesturing to the others.

I shook my head confused. "What are you guys exactly?"

"Were rangers." He said like it was perfectly obvious. Honestly.

"What's a ranger?" I exclaimed. "And who are you?"

"That's none of your concern." He imitating me perfectly. Which was infuriating by the way. "You're not from around here are you?" He asked switching back to his normal voice.

"Why do you care?" I demanded.

No One's POV:

Finally Crowley asked "How did you get here?" As if on cue a beautiful black horse trotted to the girl's side. The horse had fine tapering muscles, strong legs, and a fierce intelligent look in her large, dark eyes. The girl turned to the horse and said teasingly

"Where have you been? I called you like 15 minutes ago!" The horse responded by butting her head against the girls shoulder. She laughed. "Well," She said happily, turning back to Crowley. "My rides here! Bye!" And with that she was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:Thank you, kellyhorse I will try to keep it to one point of view from now on. Thank you Gwedhiel0117 for your constructive criticism and I will try to make sure that she is not a Mary-sue. Thank you kellyhorse, KindleFireChick for your wonderful advice the Rangers will certainly be more like Rangers from now on. Thank you Ranger Lauren for your encouragement. I am pleased to tell you I will be capitalizing Ranger from now on. **

OOF!...I ran into someone. I can not believe it. How embarrassing, although I guess it was my fault for spacing out. Then again he must have heard me coming and just stood there, probably to see what I would do, so I think I'll blame him. Unfortunately I recognized him. He was one of the people at the clearing, one of the 'Rangers'. I now recalled what my father had said about them. I really wished I would have remembered that sooner. Then again I couldn't really trust my father anyway. Even more unfortunately he recognized me to.

"Hey you're the gathering crasher!" He said way to cheerfully.

" I didn't crash it I just disturbed it." I retorted, then immediately regretted it. If my father was to be believed then you did not mess with Rangers unless you were him. He was free to do anything. He shrugged.

"Either way you're known as gathering crasher."

"Among who?" I scoffed then inwardly winced, I really needed to watch my mouth.

"Good point." He said studying me closely.

My hands immediately slid to my rapiers, belted at my sides. I don't like people watching me, especially if I don't know them.

"Follow me." He said suddenly. "Your going to the castle ward."

"No." I said firmly. I was done with wards and there stupid false families.

"Your living alone in the middle of practicably nowhere girl." He said. As if that really solved the matter.

"Alanna, my name's Alanna." I said somewhat reluctantly, anything to get him to stop calling me 'girl' even though he had only done it once.

"Well then Alanna you need a home and the ward is as good a place as any." He said very reasonably, which didn't really suit him. He looked like he liked to joke around.

"I will not go. No matter how many times you drag me there I will run away." I knew I would probably just make him mad, but I really didn't care at this point.

"You could be my apprentice." I could see his shock at those words mirror my own.

"Be your apprentice? I don't even know what Rangers are!" I said Incredulously. Probably not the smartest thing to say, but it was true, sort of. The only thing I knew was that my father thought they were good for nothing meddlers.

"I'd teach you." He said clearly having made up his mind.

"Alanna, do you mind paying attention." Gilan spoke dryly.

"Yes I do mind." I said sarcasticly, for no reason. He rolled his eyes. I thought I heard him say something like, Why did I take her on as an apprentice?, but I couldn't be sure. I've been his apprentice for almost a week now.

" Anyway as I was saying..." Gil gave me a half-stern, half-amused look. "Crowley and Halt will be here tomorrow apparently they want to discus something." I shrugged, why would I care about this exactly. Then a thought struck me.

"Why don't they send you a message if they wanted to tell you something?" Gil shrugged .

"Speakings faster. Now go practice archery." I couldn't help grinning. Something about him telling me to practice was absurdly funny. I'm probably going crazy. El well.

- "Sir, a messenger is here to see you." The man sighed.

"Let him in Tomas." Tomas nodded and slipped out. He was soon replaced by a weary, travel-stained messenger.

"Idrak, Sir, its just been discovered Sir..." The messenger panted, trying to catch his breath.

"Come on! Out with it already!" Idrak spat impatiently.

"Well Sir it's Andra Sir, she... she failed Sir." The messenger stuttered uncertainly.

"OUT!" Idrak commanded angrily. His mind was racing. How had Alanna beat Andra? How had Andra failed? Andra had never failed before. He suddenly straightened in his chair, grinning evilly as a thought struck him. He'd go after Alanna himself. He would teach her a lesson. He would kill her as Andra had been supposed to. Kill her for what she'd done to him.

**Don't worry KindleFireChick the Rangers redeeming moment is coming. Sorry kellyhorse for the point of view change I thought it was somewhat necessary. **


	3. Chapter 3

**Authors note: No one reviewed my last chapter so I don't know what you guys think and what's wrong with it. I am sooooooo sorry that this posting is so late. I had finals at school and could not find time to write. This is my favorite chapter. So Enjoy!**

Currently Halt was leading me somewhere in the forest. We'd been walking for quite awhile. I thought we were heading to the lake, but when I'd asked Halt he'd said that I didn't know anything.

I did know, however, that Crowley was supposedly following us. I hadn't heard him yet though, and I'd been listening very carefully. Anyway, when I asked Halt about it he just glared. Actually he didn't seem to do much more than glare, and grunt, then glare some more. I'd only asked two questions because of all this glaring crap. Oh and grunting, honestly the only other thing I've ever heard grunt is a pig.

I suppose it was my fault that I was out here anyway. Honestly though climbing in the rafters above Gil's head couldn't have been that distracting. (Gil is back at the cabin looking over that dratted paper I hadn't been able to read.) Crowley took me out and devised a training test anyway. So far this test had been really boring. We'd just been walking, and walking. I was still sure that we were heading to the lake. Halt was just taking the long way around.

A few minutes later I was proved right when. We emerged onto the grassy banks of the lake. I still hadn't heard Crowley, and it was really annoying.

"Well where's Crowley?" Halt asked. I heard a twig snap off to my right somewhere. I figured that was Crowley. I turned slightly and pointed to were I thought I'd heard the snap.

"There." I said.

"How do you know?" Like he didn't know.

"A twig snapped." I said, it was perfectly obvious how I knew.

"Was it accidental or intentional?"

"The twig snapping?" I asked, even though I knew the answer. Halt sighed.

"Why do young people invariably answer questions with questions?" He seemed to be asking the trees.

"Why do adults ask the trees questions if they know they won't answer?" I challenged.

"Of course I mean the twig snapping." Halt sounded aggravated, but he usually did so I took that to be a good sign.

"It was intentional." I said, then realizing he would probably ask why I thought that, I went ahead and said. "I mean why would the twig snap then? I didn't here him at all on the way here. I don't think he'd be heard if he didn't want to be."

"Your quite right." Crowley said from right behind me, scaring the crap out of me. I must have jumped like five feet into the air and looked absolutely retarded because when Crowley saw my face he burst out laughing.

"Geesh Crowley! It's not nice to sneak up on unsuspecting apprentices like that." I sounded rather annoyed. He grinned.

"Maybe not, but it is terribly fun!" Then asking Halt he said. "Do you think Gilan is done now?" Halt grunted.

"Done with what?" I asked before I could stop myself.

"Curios are you?" Crowley was almost taunting me, raising that eyebrow.

"If I wasn't curios then why would I ask?" I said raising an eyebrow right back at him. Crowley just grinned, again.

As we headed back to the cabin Crowley asked a bunch of pointless questions about my horse. What was her name? What sort of training did she have? Where had I gotten her? I answered them truthfully, mostly. Her name is Charisma. She's trained to do just about anything I wanted her to do, and I'd forgotten where I gotten her. That last part was a lie, but how was I supposed to explain that the people I,d gotten her from wanted me dead.

When we finally got back to the cabin (We took the short way this time.) Gila was waiting for us outside. He looked slightly shocked. He held up the letter I had not been allowed to see.

"Is it true?" He asked. He sounded slightly worried. Crowley nodded.

"Is what true!" I exclaimed exasperatedly. No one answered.

"We'll talk inside." Halt said motioning all of to get inside. We followed him in.

"What's going on?" I asked practically dying from curiosity. It was Halt who answered.

"There's been a series of related killings throughout Araluen."

"How do you know there related?" I butted in, sensing that Halt would skip that part just to annoy me.

"Because 'For Morgorath' has been found written on the wall or floor beside the victim. We've also found a letter saying that they were going to do what Morgorath had failed to do." Halt glared at me. I'm supprised he didn't do more for me interupting him.

"We can't seem to find any of these hideouts, or any of the murders for that matter. There becoming bolder, there killing knights and couriers,along with a baron, instead of regular people which was bad enough." Crowley finished explaining. I thought I was going to throw up. I knew who they were. I knew what they planned to do. How many people would die because of my secret, because I had failed to stop them.

**I hope you liked it!**


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